Many entities maintain and manage computing environments for their users. These computing environments may, for example include many physical and virtual machines that are coupled to one another in a network, and are managed centrally by one or more Information Technology (IT) professionals. Such computing environments often require updates and various patches. Conventionally, IT management activities are determined and implemented by an IT professional. For example, software updates are typically installed by an IT professional.
Often, there is no one to tell the IT professional when or whether to install particular updates or to perform particular IT management functions. For example, if a particular IT update is trending across the industry, unless that IT professional is current on her knowledge, she may be slow to react to emerging trends and may not react at all. In some cases, problems are determined by an IT professional on a point by point basis. In other words, an IT professional sometimes must gather data from disjointed sets of data maintained in separate systems in a plurality of formats and attempt to determine a course of action for IT management of one or more physical and/or virtual machines in a computing environment. In companies where few IT professionals work this can be a difficult task if there are a large number of IT assets to be managed and/or if the IT professional does not have extensive personal knowledge to draw upon.